


Whatever gets you through the night

by LadyRhiyana



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Accidental Voyeurism, Alternate Universe - Magical Realism, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Gen, Pensieves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-10
Updated: 2018-11-10
Packaged: 2019-08-21 12:02:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16576088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyRhiyana/pseuds/LadyRhiyana
Summary: The Lannister armies arrive at Winterfell, but Jaime does not.Brienne receives a gift: an arm-ring containing memories Jaime chose to hold close. She can't help but look.Some are painful, some are triumphant, some are joyous, and some make her feel uncomfortable and ashamed, but they are all echoes of Jaime and she needs something to hold close in the dark.[Or; five times Brienne uses Jaime's memories to get her through the Long Night and one memory that Jaime creates anew.]





	Whatever gets you through the night

Long weeks after the meeting at the Dragonpit, the Lannister army arrives at Winterfell. 

Brienne looks on from the battlements, searching the ranks of crimson-cloaked soldiers and mounted knights for a glimpse of Jaime, but in vain; it’s not until later, when all the rituals of welcome have been observed, that she realises he did not come with them. 

**

“The Mad Queen ordered a loyalty purge of the Lannister forces,” Ser Addam Marbrand says, standing before King Jon and Queen Daenerys in the great hall. “Ser Bronn got word to us in the Riverlands just in time; we marched north before the entire army turned on itself. But no one has seen Lord Jaime since the day of the Dragonpit.”

Brienne feels her heart sink within her. If the Queen could turn even on Jaime, her lover and her twin, then she has truly passed beyond the bounds of reason. 

“Then she has no intention of honouring her vow,” Queen Daenerys says. 

“I fear not,” Ser Addam admits. “But we, at least, are loyal to Lord Jaime and not the Queen; we marched north to honour his promise.“

**

Later, Ser Addam seeks her out and asks to speak to her in private. When they are alone, he gives her a small bundle wrapped in crimson cloth. Curious, she unwraps the cloth, torn from a Lannister officer’s cloak, to reveal a wrought gold arm-ring engraved with the lion rampant and rows upon rows of contoured starbursts, each with a tiny gold bead at its heart.

She frowns. “What is this?” she asks, stroking her fingers over the engraved lion, over the starbursts worn smooth by long years. 

“Ser Bronn bore it when he rode to the Riverlands to warn us, and to pass on Lord Jaime’s last orders. It’s why we took him at his word and rode north so quickly. Every man in the Lannister army knows it to be Lord Jaime’s.” Ser Addam pauses, coughs delicately. “He wished it to go to you, Lady Brienne.”

Brienne looks down at the arm-ring, lying heavy in her hand. She remembers it now, seeing it in the baths at Harrenhal, encircling his right arm. Swallowing around an obstruction in her throat, she cups it in her palm and wonders where Jaime is, what had happened after he gave Bronn this last, desperate message. 

Was it her imagination, or was the metal warm to her touch, still holding the remnant of his warmth? 

** 

“We men of the West are a romantic folk,” Tyrion says, half-seriously, when she shows it to him later. “Hedge-magic and the old ways still hold sway, even amongst the Lannisters. These arm-rings,” he says, gently touching his own upper arm, “the beads are charms to hold memories close against our hearts. Sometimes the memories are triumphant, sometimes joyful – and sometimes they’re bitter. Whatever sustains us in our darkest hours.”

“Of course, Father hardly believed in such superstitious nonsense. But our mother did; she commissioned the arm-ring for Jaime.”

“Do you think,” Brienne pauses, “will the charms only work for Jaime?”

Tyrion looks at her, something close to pity in his mismatched eyes. “If he wished you to have it, the charms will work for you.” He pauses. “Just – be prepared, Brienne. You’ll find that he and Cersei were intertwined for so long –”

Oh, she thinks. 

She wonders what Cersei looks like through Jaime’s eyes.

** 

1.

Alone in her chamber that night, she unwraps the arm-ring and runs her fingers over the heavy, smooth weight of it, choosing a starburst at random and pressing the tiny bead in its centre. The charm grows warm to the touch, and between one breath and the next – 

_…they’re lying tangled together in the dawn light, Jaime savouring the soft, trusting warmth of her breathing, watching her face as she sleeps. All those years of stolen hours and snatched, hurried couplings, and now they are free to share a bed, sleep side by side as they had not done since they were children. And yet some part of him is uneasy…_

– Brienne draws in her breath. The sense memory of it had been so real: the warmth of Cersei’s body pressed against his, the smell of their coupling, the taste of wine and musk, the sounds of the Keep waking around him that had once meant that he’d stayed far too long. 

The emotions had been even stronger. 

**

The next memory – the engraved lines of the starburst softened by long years of use – is:

_…a dark bedchamber in a Flea Bottom inn, where he waits impatiently until Cersei finally comes to him, dressed in servant’s garb. When she casts off her hooded cloak to reveal her golden hair and slips her homespun dress from her shoulders, he bears her down to the bed and she reaches for him eagerly –_

When the memory finally comes to a close, young Jaime and Cersei lying entwined with their heads sharing a pillow and staring into each other’s eyes, Brienne comes back to herself flushed and aching and disturbed. It’s one thing to know and accept that Jaime and his sister were lovers. It’s quite another to experience the physical and emotional reality of it: hot-blooded desire, genuine reverence and devotion, and the absolute conviction that they were each the missing half of the other, one soul in two bodies, never to be parted. 

**

2.

She slips the arm-ring onto her own arm, onto bare muscled flesh under her tunic, under her armour, under her heavy cloak. The solid weight of it is a warm presence, a talisman against the nights that grow ever darker and full of terror. 

Despite the shock of his encounters with Cersei, she finds that she can’t stop coming back to his memories. When she is alone she runs her hands over the starbursts again, sampling them at random. Some are painful, some are triumphant, some are joyous, and some make her feel uncomfortable and ashamed, but they are all echoes of Jaime, and she needs something to hold close in the dark.

If he truly is dead or dying in the black cells, if this is all she will ever have of him, she can’t bring herself to give it up.

**

But one night, as winter blizzards close in on them and the entire population of the castle huddles together in the great hall, as the flames in the great hearths flicker and dim and the children almost weep with fear, Brienne gathers them around her and shares a memory of golden summer. 

_…Jaime and Cersei running barefoot with the ragged children of fisherfolk on the streets of Lannisport, dodging angry vendors in the market and laughing at their abuse. The sun is warm on his back and the sky is blue and cloudless, and they strip off their tunics and hose and dive into the cool green water to cool off, wrestling and racing each other to a tiny barren rock._

_Later they catch crabs and clams and roast them over a driftwood fire on the shore, eating with greasy fingers and washing it down with a stolen skin of sweet wine, and watch the sun go down over the Sunset Sea._

For a few stolen moments the children smile and giggle and forget their worries, and her heart aches at the sweet, golden innocence of it. 

**

3.

She watches him kneel on the battlefield before Ser Arthur Dayne – who looks as radiant and imposing and impossibly honourable as the Warrior himself – and arise a knight. 

She watches him kneel before King Aerys and arise a knight of the Kingsguard. That memory in particular is bitter with embarrassment and indignation. 

She watches him kill the Mad King and arise a kingslayer. Warm blood drips from his sword, stains the trailing edge of his white cloak and spatters on his face and his golden armour. 

He feels nothing but numb emptiness.

** 

By now, the days have grown short and the nights unbearably long. The wights throw themselves against the walls so constantly that there is no respite from the endless fighting, only moments of rest snatched here and there. 

The children ask her for more of what they call the adventures of Ser Jaime, and she tries to share some of his happier and more innocent memories with them: a sea voyage, the wind in his hair and the spray flying high as the ship flies across the waves; a tourney victory before thousands of cheering onlookers, banners snapping against the sky and red roses to crown his sister Queen of Love and Beauty. 

The wildlings and the Dothraki roar with appreciation as they watch him in the Greyjoy rebellion, skirmishing with the Ironmen before his charge through the breach at the siege of Pyke. Tormund asks if it’s true that he really charged at a dragon with a lance, and if so is there any record of it. Brienne doesn’t tell him that Jaime’s memory of that battle is so vivid and clear and horrific that she’d had nightmares for days afterwards, waking with the acrid stink of dragonfire and ash clogging her throat. 

**

4.

Some of the Lannister captains quietly ask her if there are any memories of the Westerlands she could share with the men. “We are very far from home, Lady Brienne,” they say, “and some of the men have been fighting for years on end. We need something to remind us of our homes.”

She finds the memory of a great annual fair at the Golden Tooth which Jaime and his fellow squires from had attended as boys. Some of the Lannister captains – Ser Addam Marbrand and burly Ser Roland Crakehall – laugh uproariously as they see their younger selves as eager, beardless boys. “Gods, I remember that day,” Ser Roland says. “There were dancing girls from Dorne – and one of them had a snake that she – ” He trails off, coughing, as he recalls Brienne’s presence. 

The watching soldiers nod and smile as the memory unfolds through Jaime’s young eyes. They recognize the familiar landscape through which the boys travel, call out the names of all the banners and the badges they see, hear the familiar accents of the Westerlands in all the shouting merchants and the bustling crowd. A travelling singer strums a small, sweet lap harp and sings an old love song from the hills, and some of the men begin to weep. 

When young Jaime casually wolfs down a plate of honey-roasted pork and soft white bread, the taste of the meat on her tongue – and the bitter ale with which he washes it down – is indescribable. 

** 

5\. 

Some memories – the most private ones – she does not share. 

Jaime’s memories of Cersei and the children. 

Aerys. 

The bitter defeat of the Whispering Wood, and the moment the flashing sword severed his right hand. 

Brandon Stark’s heart trembling under his palm, and the things Jaime once did for love. 

One night, when they are both very drunk, she gathers up her courage and asks Tyrion if he wishes to see Jaime’s faded memories of their mother. “Thank you, but no,” Tyrion says, after a long pause. “Jaime showed them to me long ago, when I was a child – every night, before I went to sleep.” He peers into the depths of his wine-filled goblet, his eyes blinking away a film of moisture. “I used to pretend that it was her kiss on my head, not Jaime’s, her voice singing in my ear – until Father made Jaime stop.” 

**

Once, she stumbles across the memory of his last swordfight as a whole man. But Brienne holds her own recollection of that duel so close, has played it over and over again in her mind so often that she can’t bear to see it through Jaime’s eyes. 

** 

+1 

By the time the nights have grown so long that the sun does not rise at all, a troop of long-forgotten Lannister men arrives at the gate, bearing with them a ghost. He is shaking and exhausted and his ragged beard is liberally streaked with silver, but despite all that his smile still cuts like a knife and his eyes are still sardonic and fierce and brilliant Lannister green. 

“Welcome, Ser Jaime,” the Dragon Queen says as he makes his bow to her in the great hall. “Your courage and strength are well-known to us all.”

** 

When the long night is finished and the sun rises once more, Jaime accompanies her back to Tarth. As they stand pressed together on the deck of their boat, joy filling their hearts as the brilliant waters of the Sapphire Isle welcome them home, Jaime presses his hand to an unused starburst on his arm-ring and creates a new memory of Spring.


End file.
